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One Jam to Rule Them All

Thank you to Stephanie for writing about delicious, delicious jam and hilarious, hilarious puns.

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Hi, all, Stephanie here. I’m guest-posting because yesterday I made some strawberry jam, and Chloë asked me to write about it.
I think it was less because of the jam (I am no food blogger) and more because of how I used making jam as an excuse to make jam puns. Here’s an excerpt from the G-chat in which Chloë discovered the jam game:

me: I have to tell you about a fun pun word game I’m playing (basically by myself, but with input from others occasionally)

Chloë: giv’er

me: in June/July I have plans to make jam with my friend Beth. so for the labels I want to have movie/TV show/book taglines but replacing key words with the word “jam”. for example:

• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Jam

• When you play the game of jams, you win or you die

• May the jams be ever in your flavour

Chloë: yeah!

me: (that one’s a double)

Chloë: i like it!

me: i had one for the wire: “you come at the jam, you best not miss”

also “you cannot jam if you do not play”. turns out it’s really fun to replace words with “jam”

It was! It still is. (Also, Beth and multiple coworkers were playing the jam game too, so many of these puns aren’t actually ones I came up with. I had much help.)

Beth was instrumental in the jam-making, as she’s the one who actually bought the cookbook from which we got the recipe, and she bought a giant stockpot so we could do the water-bath step instead of just risking botulism, which was my initial instinct.

If it had been up to me, I probably would have spent months replacing words with “jam” and then buying a jar of jam at the store and calling it a day. Good thing I have friends who are motivated to complete projects.

Making jam was actually easier than I thought it would be.

The stage I was most worried about, the thickening stage, went just fine and filled my kitchen with steam and weird hot-fruit smell (I smelled like this for the rest of the day).

I was also kind of nervous about the jars sealing, because that is what makes the difference between jam you have to keep in your fridge and jam that can stay on the shelves for months at a time (an actual preserve rather than just some slushy strawberry stuff you stuck in a jar). There is an audible pop when the jars seal, and it has the potential to fill your heart with joy and also make you squeal in a way that will embarrass you immediately after you’ve done it.

The recipe we made was smaller than our brains’ capacities for thinking of jam puns, so we couldn’t use them all this time. That just means we’ll have to make more jam! The puns we used:

Clear Jam, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose (Friday Night Lights)

When You Play the Game of Jams, You Win or You Die (Game of Thrones, and by far the most threatening of the puns)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkajam (Come on, you know this one)

One Jam to Rule Them All (Lord of the Rings)

Clever Jam (Jurassic Park)

You Come at the Jam, You Best Not Miss (The Wire)

Strawberry Jam, June 23, 2012 (This jar is for my parents, who would humour a jam pun but wouldn’t really get it)

Jam puns we’re saving for next time:

2+2=Jam (1984)

The Empire Strikes Jam (This label had stick-figure Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker on it; I really wanted to use it)

Frankly, My Dear, I Don’t Give a Jam (Gone with the Wind)

May the Jams Be Ever In Your Flavour (The Hunger Games [The Hunger Jams?])

Fresh Jam of Bel-Air (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)

Colours of the Jam (Pocahontas)

And many more. Have any good ones? List them in the comments!

Credit for all these photos goes to Beth and her fancy Instagram iPhone. Beth is also the one who drew that fantastic and terrifying velociraptor.

If you want to make your own jam (I recommend it!) the recipe we used is the basic, pectin-free strawberry jam recipe in the book I linked to above. I recommend doing enough research to feel confident but not enough to freak out about botulism. Everything will be okay! I love Big Jam! (Okay, that’s another 1984 joke. I just love how dismal they are.)